


Safe

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-02
Updated: 2012-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-26 06:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Every Tuesday Spike walks Tara home, to keep her safe.Takes place in an AU Season 7 where Warren's bullet hit Willow instead of Tara.





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maryfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryfic/gifts).



> This is for maryfic who requested something Spike/Tara, she specifically wanted something happy, so after deleting two angstier versions, I finally got to this one. With grief in it.

It was the usual, safe Tuesday. 

Spike fell into step beside Tara as she left the Summer’s house to head back to her dorm, another day gotten through, another visit to the house that had once held Willow, and she hadn’t even felt like crying. Which made her sort of feel like crying.

“I’ll walk you home,” Spike said, like he always did, not quite looking at her, and she made a quiet noise that wasn’t yes but was close enough and they started down the street.

It was a companionable walk; Spike a reassuring shadow at her side. As usual, she paused as they passed the Espresso Pump, and Spike asked, “Want to stop in?”

As usual, she shook her head, and as usual, he took her arm and said, “It’ll only take a second.”

Tara sat at their usual table in the back while Spike dropped his elbow on the counter and smiled at the barista. He said, “The usual, love,” like it was a filthy proposition.

The barista – a heavyset, Hispanic student at UC Sunnydale whom Tara saw sometimes on campus – reacted as always with a placidity Tara admired, like Spike could do a strip tease on the cash register and she wouldn’t even look.

He shifted his hip, elbows on the counter. His jeans were well worn, clinging to the tight curve of his rear. Suddenly she could easily imagine that strip tease. Tara felt her cheeks heating up. She looked away.

Spike dropped onto the booth seat beside her, all sprawling limbs. He smiled at her and nudged her shoulder. “This is nice, yeah? Getting away, acting normal. Consuming empty calories.”

Tara nudged him back. “Hitting on Carla.”

He gave her an odd look, but when he blinked his smile was back. “You don’t want first crack at her, do you?”

It was a harmless jibe, but Tara felt like a plug had been pulled out of her naval, and all of her insides were streaming out. Grief could sideswipe you like that.

“Hey, hey!” Spike’s arm was around her shoulders, squeezing, his other hand rubbing up and down her bicep. “Forget I said it, Glinda. Of course you’re not ready for that. No reason to even… I’m an idiot, yeah?”

Tara hiccuped a little. Carla set the mocha down on the table and gave her a concerned look that said she’d do something, if invited to.

“I-I’m okay,” Tara said. She felt the weight of their expectation over her – Spike and Carla, both waiting for her to say more. She hated it that silent demand, the way it pushed friction into her voice and made her letters trip. “I-I…” She hoped Spike would see the pleading in her eyes.

He did. “She’s all right,” he said, confidently, and pulled the mocha across the table toward her.

Tara relaxed against him, grateful. His arm loosened, but kept around her, fingers gently scratching the fabric on her shoulder. Carla gave Spike a warning look and went back to the front of the café.

Spike pressed his lips, dry and chaste, to Tara’s hair. “I get it. I do. Me, I joke about the things that are too painful to talk about. Doesn’t mean it’s any less painful. But you’ll heal one day, pet. You have to. You don’t deserve to be on your own.”

Tara pulled back to give him a pointed look.

“What?” He asked, obviously not getting it.

“You say that like you  _do_  deserve to be on your own.”

Spike dropped his head onto one hand. “You lost the love of your life. I… I drove mine away. And gained a conscience so I wouldn’t do it again.” He gave a sad half-shrug. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Possibly not ever in your whole beautiful life.”

Tara blushed under the weight of his admiring, almost awe-struck look. With effort, she raised her head and said, trying for a proud tone, “I’ve done bad things.”

“Now, don’t brag about it,” he chided, relaxing back into the booth.

Tara took up her mocha and watched Spike watch the crowd. She wondered if he would have gotten something to drink with her, before the soul. It should have made him more human, but the changes she saw where mostly deletions. He didn’t do a lot of things anymore, particularly the more human things, like singing or extolling the virtues of disgusting snack foods.

Tara put her mocha down. “You like spending time with me because I’m safe, don’t you?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Safe for what? I’m a vampire, here. Other people have to be safe from me.”

“That’s, well, what I mean. You think I’m safe from you.”

“Oh, you’re anything but safe,” he purred, with a playful leer, but she could see worry in his eyes.

They moved on to their usual subjects – her classes, the latest slaying business – but Tara didn’t stop thinking about that worry, and the nugget of hurt she felt.

She didn’t want another relationship. That was a steady constant in her mind. She didn’t even go to the LGBT mixers anymore, though she used to volunteer to mix punch and everyone said she did it the best.

And there HAD been guys, in high school. And even a few she’d admired since coming out. She wasn’t immune to the charms of Johnny Depp, certainly. She felt hurt that Spike just assumed she was all the way over on the Kinsey scale. He had no fear of incurring the lust of the lesbian. Spike used to exude innuendo more thickly than the smell of his cigarettes. He seemed to breathe a miasma of lust and smoke. Now he seemed to hold it inside, every muscle tensed against an accidental leak of his baser self. It was brittle and impossible, but he was doing it, and it was starting to piss her off.

Maybe it was the lecture on assertiveness training in her practical psychology course, or maybe it was the song that played on the radio while she brushed her hair after her shower, but the very next Tuesday, Tara made up her mind to do something about this.

It felt… refreshing, like she’d been hiding under a blanket for months and had finally cast it off. She was going to do something a little bit bad.

She smiled at Spike as she left Buffy’s house and said, “Walk me home?” before he could.

When they passed the Espresso Pump, she took his arm and pulled him along as he slowed, expecting her to stop. “No, I had enough caffeine today,” she said.

“Seems like you have!” He laughed, but his eyes slid back to the coffee shop a little longingly. “I look forward to our walks, love. It’ll be all over so fast without at least one stop.”

“I know,” Tara said, and felt a jerk on her arm as Spike stopped his steps for a moment. She cringed a little and turned to him. “I-I mean, I thought we could hang out at m-m-my.” She dropped his arm to cover her face, stopping in her tracks. It had been a long time since she’d stuttered so bad. Into her palm, she said, “My place.”

When she finally lowered her hand, Spike was staring at her, dumbstruck. She forced herself to keep her hands at her side and shrugged.

Spike looked away and then back, like he was checking for a Punk’d crew. “That, uh, that doesn’t mean what it sounded like you meant. Right?”

Tara bit her lip, feeling her confident vibe fade, and a distinct desire to pathetically ask if he liked her. “N-no. W-we can just hang out. Like at the coffee shop. But no coffee.” She straightened, regaining strength. “I have a TV.”

Spike smiled, slow and easy, like he used to. “Well. I’m sold.”

So they walked the rest of the way. Tara felt a little like a fraud, but Spike acted as he usually did, friendly but silent, there but not.

Tara did not want to watch television. This was her big bold move back into social life? As she opened the door to her dorm, she muttered, “Baby steps.”

Spike gave her that odd look again.

“I don’t even know what’s on,” she said, fumbling for her room key as she led him up the stairs. “I don’t… actually watch TV much.”

Her hands seemed determined not to do anything she set them to, shaking and dropping the keys, slipping on the doorknob, failing to drop the keys in the little dish on her dresser.

She was reaching for the little pink TV she had propped up on the top of her dorm fridge when Spike took her hand and stilled it between his. She froze a moment, startled. His hands were cool and dry.

“I do not,” he said, touching her cheek now to turn her toward him, “only like you because you’re safe.” His voice was deep and rich and she felt it vibrate in her lungs. His thumb traced the curve of her cheek and he smiled sadly. “Quite the opposite, actually. You’re temptation itself, love. And you’ve invited me into your room.”

Tara slowly lifted her hand to Spike’s arm, and just held it, held his hand against her cheek. She nodded, afraid to speak and stutter and break the mood. 

Spike looked at her like he could see right into her soul. “I don’t like to think about the last time I was in one of these rooms.” His hot, bright eyes flicked away from her for a second, indicating the dorm room. He took a half step back. “So maybe I should go, yeah?”

Tara held onto him and shook her head. She was so close to really escaping her self-imposed isolation and he couldn’t go. But she couldn’t find the words to explain that. Instead she blurted, “How about some popcorn?”

He smiled. “I could literally kill for some popcorn.”

Tara smiled. She was glad he’d said “kill”. It reduced the word, and his fears, and hers.

It only took a few minutes to take a bag of microwave popcorn down to the floor kitchenette and pop it, and Spike turned on the TV and found a cop show for them to watch and he re-arranged the pillows to make it more couch-like.

She settled against his open arm and placed the first salty kernel on his lips. He stared at her a bit, lips slack, before he curled them over the popcorn and lifted it from her fingers.

They were neither of them smiling. Tiny bullet shots rang out from the TV’s speaker as the popcorn bowl fell to the floor. Neither of them noticed what was playing, other than the dim light over each other’s faces. Spike’s hands were strong and hard and his lips wet and full. His rough jeans rubbed through her skirt like it wasn't even there, and it sparked feelings she thought buried forever. She clung to him tight, fingernails digging into t-shirt fabric, but he didn't seem to mind.

Whatever it was, it was definitely not safe.


End file.
